Saints Lack Synchronization and Time, Desperately Searching for Answers

They said it, not us. The Saints are just not a good football team right now, and it shows in more ways than one.

Author:
John Hendrix
Publish date:
Nov 13, 2022 6:33 PM EST

In this story:

PITTSBURGH -- All the cards should be on the table for the Saints going forward. They've massively underachieved, and losing to the Steelers in Week 10 may have been the pinnacle of it all. New Orleans is now 3-7 on the year, and it's time to reassess things. Let's just face it, this team is in football purgatory, and there's few reasons to be optimistic going forward.

"I mean it's obvious that we're just not a good football team right now," said Tyrann Mathieu in the locker room.

New Orleans is ten games into their season, and we're still seeing the same mistakes that are characteristics of a bad football team. Whether it's the penalties, the missed tackles, the miscues on offense, or anything else you can come up with now - it's all valid.

Cam Jordan said a mouthful early in his locker room interview by saying, "This shit does not feel good."

He continued, "To be honest, we have to find our way, or this is going to be the result of every game. We show a lot of fight, we show a lot of heart, but we don't get the job done."

That about sums it up, but it's also concerning. A lot of issues point to coaching. For instance, how is Adam Prentice instead of Alvin Kamara not in the game on an important 3rd Down call? Prentice even ran a route. Why wouldn't Taysom Hill be used in short yardage situations? How are some of things still happening and continue to happen this long into a season?

Dennis Allen said in regards to coaching better, "I think some of it would come down to some fundamentals and technique. I still there there's got to be some improvement there. The discipline aspect of - we had a couple of false start penalties. There's just a lot of different areas that we've got to improve on."

Fundamentals and technique are something that gets fixed and addressed in training camp, preseason, and the early stages of the season. Allen's answer on getting out of these situations seems simple, but also very taxing for this team.

"There's no other way to get out of it other than fight your way out of it. This is where you've got to lean on the leadership of the group, and they've got to pull us through."

Jarvis Landry talked about it while addressing how the locker room stays together, saying, "We have veteran players here. Leaders stepping up is key throughout the week. Especially after a game like today. That's what it's going to be about."

Those veterans and that leadership are going to have their work cut out for them. Whether they practice harder or practice more, or just start changing the players, something has to get done to avoid complete and utter failure. The only problem is that it's so late in the season now, and finding wins on the rest of the schedule seems futile.

The Andy Dalton experiment seems all but over, and that turning back to a 'healthy' but not 100 percent Jameis Winston will be the answer. However, Dennis Allen wouldn't address that following the game.

Allen said, "I'm not going to get into that right now. We just came off the game. We'll have plenty of time to evaluate where we're at in a lot of areas."

This is the worst we've seen the Saints in a long time, 2005 to be exact. Even during the 7-9 years, the team would battle out of a long hole and get back to .500 only to lose down the stretch in important games, but they at least fought back to do so. This year's team has proven that good coaching matters and continuity is overrated. They're lacking in all areas, and we're just waiting for it to get worse before it gets better.